The Dictatorship

Earth Day: Why sustainability and transparency matter more than ever

Published

3 months ago

April 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Apr. 13, 2026, 9:29 PM EDT

ByKnow Your Value staff

Knowing your value starts with taking ownership of your health.

That’s why Know Your Value and its founder Mika Brzezinski is partnering with the Environmental Working Group for an Earth Day event on April 22nd in Los Angeles.

We’re bringing together leading voices in environmental and women’s health for a conversation about knowing – and owning – our value…as women, movement creators and champions of environmental health.

Brzezinski recently spoke to Mark Abrials, chief marketing and sustainability officer – and co-founder at “Avocado green mattress” – one of our event sponsors – about the role companies play in advancing environmental and social responsibility.

“For Avocado … Earth Day is every day. I mean, Earth Day is built into our DNA ,” said Abrials. “I think it’s a time for consumers to just maybe reflect upon the products that they do bring into their house and maybe use it as an opportunity to dig deeper into how they’re made, how materials are sourced, because that has a direct impact on your own personal health, but also the health of the planet.”

You can watch the entire interview below:

Know Your Value staff

The Dictatorship

Media advocates see NYT subpoenas as dangerous threat to a free press

Published

7 hours ago

July 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Media advocates see NYT subpoenas as dangerous threat to a free press

Dangerous. Brazen. Unprecedented. Uncharted territory.

Reaction in the media world has been swift and severe to the issue of subpoenas to five New York Times journalists who reported on security questions involving the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One — a legal maneuver seen as a troubling escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to control and intimidate independent media outlets.

“The subpoenas are an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations and have a chilling effect on the work of journalists across the country,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Media advocates and analysts expressed dismay at the tactic, even after months in which news organizations drawing President Donald Trump’s ire have been attacked both in courtrooms and in the court of public opinion; media access to corridors of power has been blocked; and a Washington journalist’s home has been searched by federal agents.

Staff lay a carpet on the tarmac before President Donald Trump exits Air Force One upon arriving for the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“They have used the levers of power to intimidate and demonize professional journalists who report stories that are unfavorable to the administration’s desired narrative,” said Frank Sesno, a former BLN White House bureau chief who is now a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University.

He called Friday’s subpoenas “dangerous and uncharted territory, but merely an extension of what we have seen from this administration and president.”

“Don’t like a poll? Sue the Des Moines Register,” he said. “Don’t like the way an interview is edited? Sue ‘60 Minutes.’ Don’t like the coverage of the gifted Air Force One? Order the FBI to investigate and subpoena the journalists for what is, by the way, a story that is in the public interest.”

Some of the subpoenas were delivered to reporters at home

Some of the subpoenas were delivered to reporters at their homes, the Times said. Sought by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, they seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan this week.

The new jet in question, a present from Qatar that Trump’s administration spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade, entered service last week. But the Republican president used an older model Air Force One jet to leave a NATO summit in Turkey.

Air Force One sits on the tarmac as President Donald Trump switches planes at U.S. Air Force Base, RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk Eastern England, on his way back to Washington from the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey ,Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. On social media, Trump denied security concerns.

The subpoenas were issued after FBI Director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to talk about the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Times said the meeting lasted around eight hours.

The fact that the operation was conducted from the White House itself was particularly egregious to analysts like Sesno, who called the coordination “unprecedented.”

“This graphically illustrates the pressure and influence the White House and president have brought to bear on law enforcement that is supposed to be independent and driven by facts, not politics,” he said.

The Justice Department has justified the subpoenas by saying that “to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

“We value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country,” the department said in a weekend statement. “But DOJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information.”

The National Press Club called on the Justice Department to immediately withdraw the subpoenas.

“Every American should understand what is at stake,” Mark Schoeff Jr., the club’s president, said in a statement. “When federal agents arrive at the homes of journalists with subpoenas, it is not ordinary law enforcement. It is an extraordinary assault on the freedom of the press that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.”

Also expressing solidarity with the Times journalists was the White House Correspondents’ Association — which, in less than two weeks, holds its rescheduled dinner, with Trump planning to attend the event that celebrates the First Amendment. The first dinner was scuttled when a shooter opened fire in what prosecutors say was an attempt to kill the president.

“The White House Correspondents’ Association stands with the New York Times reporters who were targeted for doing their jobs to uphold the public’s right to know how its government operates,” said a statement from the group’s president, Weijia Jiang. “The WHCA condemns any act of intimidation against journalists, including attempts to pressure them into revealing sources.”

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in flight on Air Force One after landing at U.S. Air Force Base at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, Eastern England, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump’s administration has initiated multiple lawsuits against media outlets

Trump’s animosity toward news outlets whose agenda runs counter to his own isn’t new. But in his second presidential term, he has launched an escalation, often harnessing the levers of the federal government or attempting to do so. These efforts have taken place both in actual courtrooms and in the court of public opinion.

The president has sued various news organizations whose coverage he dislikes. He has also threatened to revoke TV broadcast licenses. His Federal Communications Commission chairman is seeking to penalize shows like ABC’s “The View,” where some hosts speak out against Trump, by having the FCC explore revoking its exemption from equal-time rules.

The legal skirmishes include an escalating dispute between the media and Trump’s Defense Department over reporters’ access to the Pentagon. The Times has filed two lawsuits over a policy requiring journalists to be accompanied by escorts at the military complex.

The White House has also battled with The Associated Press over the news organization’s refusal to follow Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico. And it has battled with The Wall Street Journal over reporting about Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to the president — including an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature.

Last month, the Justice Department withdrew subpoenas it had issued that sought to compel reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Post confirmed that one of its journalists received a subpoena from the Trump administration as part of a broader crackdown on media leaks that in January also included the extraordinary step of an FBI search of the home of another journalist at the newspaper and the seizure of her electronic devices. The media world was stunned by the search of the home of reporter Hannah Natanson, who was covering Trump’s transformation of the federal government.

The Times is now gearing up for battle against what its lawyer David McCraw has called “this brazen act.”

In an internal memo seen by the AP, the newspaper’s executive editor, Joseph Kahn, criticized the subpoenas, praised his journalists’ work and said: “We expect to prevail. We have the best legal team in the business. … The law protects news gatherers from this sort of retaliatory abuse of prosecutorial power. It is essential that the courts reaffirm that protection and quash this overreach. We are confident they will in this case.”

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Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

The Dictatorship

US attacks Iran as Tehran fires at tankers in strait

Published

7 hours ago

July 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

US attacks Iran as Tehran fires at tankers in strait

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military early Wednesday reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports over Tehran’s attacks on ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuzsparking new strikes on nations hosting American forces as an interim deal to end the war further unraveled.

Days of retaliatory strikes across the Middle East by Iran — and both nations’ attempts to vie for control of the waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passes during peacetime — threaten to push the region back to all-out war.

The U.S. first imposed the blockade in mid-April and then lifted it in mid-June, a day after signing the interim deal that set a 60-day period for negotiations over issues like Iran’s nuclear program, but talks have stalled as fighting over the strait has intensified.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade.

“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said.

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced the return of the blockade Monday, he also said he would impose a 20% fee on ships passing through the strait. But he dropped the plan to collect fees hours before resuming the blockade, citing requests from allies in the Persian Gulf.

Both US and Iran launched attacks as blockade reimposed

The U.S. carried out another wave of strikes as it reimposed the blockade, striking dozens of targets over seven hours, the U.S. military’s Central Command said Wednesday.

Missile alert warnings went out in Bahrain and Kuwait early Wednesday morning as they faced incoming Iranian fire, something that’s been a daily occurrence, further straining a ceasefire in the war.

U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads Central Command, said in a statement that Iran had launched dozens of missiles and drones at neighboring Gulf Arab countries.

“U.S. forces are holding Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression that continues to endanger innocent lives,” Cooper said.

There are at least 19 U.S. warships in the Arabian Sea, including two aircraft carriers and an amphibious assault ship with more than 1,000 Marines aboard. Central Command also said in a social media post that there are “hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East.”

When the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively shut the passage by attacking and threatening ships. That sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring.

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Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route near Oman overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control, setting off the recent violence. The U.S. has threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, criticized America’s ongoing attacks targeting his country.

“The U.S. is the aggressor, not the victim,” he wrote to the world body’s leader, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Trump says he’s replacing the fees with Gulf investments

Trump said Tuesday that he was called by the region’s “kings and emirs,” who suggested an alternate arrangement to charging ships fees to pass through the strait like the president proposed a day earlier.

“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.

Trump said he preferred that arrangement to charging tolls “because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait.”

It was unclear if the investment deals would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.

Trump’s plan to charge fees would have been a change to longstanding American policy and a departure from U.S. promises that the strait would remain open to all without tolls.

Trump told Fox News Channel on Tuesday night that more U.S. strikes against Iran were coming over the next two days and that bridges and power plants could be targets by next week unless negotiations resume. Already, the U.S. has struck at least one bridge.

“You better make a deal, or you’re not going to have anything left,” Trump warned.

Strikes and counterstrikes resume across the Mideast

U.S. Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran earlier Tuesday; Tehran acknowledged the strikes but provided no overall casualty or damage assessments.

Hours after the U.S. said it ended its strikes, the Iranian city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was hit in at least four locations, the IRNA news agency reported. Explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the southern port city of Bandar Abbas also were reported by Iranian state media Tuesday night.

The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.

Kuwait separately said an Iranian attack wounded four members of its navy Tuesday and set a building on fire.

The interim peace deal is in peril

Under the interim dealIran agreed that passage through the strait would remain free of charge for 60 days — but the agreement left open what would happen after. Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic and potentially charge fees. The U.S. has disputed that.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly topped $87 early Tuesdaystill well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war. The price dipped to $78 in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement that he had changed course.

Regional mediators meanwhile are still trying to get the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate diplomatic process, said Pakistan-led mediation was working around the clock to reactivate the ceasefire.

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Toropin and Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Will Weissert and Ben Finley in Washington; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Trump says US will blockade Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and charge ships for safe passage

Published

20 hours ago

July 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump says US will blockade Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and charge ships for safe passage

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. launched strikes on Iran early Tuesday morning, hours after President Donald Trump said Washington is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump separately suggested the United States will charge other ships for safe passage, upending hundreds of years of American policy supporting freedom of navigation across the globe.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate against Iran, potentially drawing the nation home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai back into fighting with Tehran.

The attacks come as Iran and the U.S. both vie for control of the strait through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime. The price of benchmark Brent crude oil rose to a one-month high of over $84 in trading early Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war but threatening to make costs everywhere higher.

Trump insists strait will be open

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck areas around Abu Musa, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chahbahar, Jask and Konarak, targeting Iranian “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged strikes around those areas, but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the U.S. military said.

Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Trump called it “another major attack.”

“We’re hitting them very hard. And it’ll continue, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re knocking out all of their offensive capability and we’re controlling the straits. We’re putting the blockade back.”

Trump also provided new details on his administration doing an about-face and suggesting it will charge tolls for ships going through the strait, after previously suggesting that it wouldn’t.

“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world,” he said. “We’re spending money. And so, what we’ve done is, we are going to be reimbursed for protection.”

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It’s a change in U.S. policy that, until now, said the strait should remain open to all without tolls — as it was before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Any attempt by the U.S. or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.

The U.S. Navy has fought for freedom of navigation on the seas since the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.

Attacks resume across the Mideast

The United Arab Emirates’ Defense Ministry said early Tuesday that Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.

The Emirati Defense Ministry said Iran launched two cruise missiles at the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah.

The attacks set both tankers ablaze, though the fires were extinguished.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack on the tankers, saying the vessels “ignored repeated warnings.”

“They chose to pass through a minefield and were subsequently targeted and disabled,” the Guard said.

Bahrain also came under renewed attack early Tuesday morning as Iran retaliated over the latest round of U.S. airstrikes. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens twice, urging the public to seek shelter. There was no word on any damage or casualties from the attack.

The Emirati Defense Ministry said the attack on the tankers killed one Indian national and wounded six Indians and two Ukrainians.

“The UAE reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, its citizens and residents,” the Defense Ministry added.

The Emirates used similar language before launching attacks against Iran during the war. Fighter jets could be heard overheard Tuesday morning in Dubai.

The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the U.S. Consulate in Dubai alerted Americans early Tuesday that consular appointments had been canceled through Wednesday “due to the regional security situation.”

Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles from Iran, according to a statement carried by the kingdom’s state-run Petra news agency. Jordan hosts U.S. forces and has come under attack by Tehran in recent days.

Trump says Iran failed a test

Earlier Monday, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the agreement reached last month was “built to test” Iran, adding that “when you’re dealing with sleazebags (agreements) don’t mean much.”

“They didn’t honor the test,” the president said.

Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The U.S. has disputed that.

The American military and the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization have tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route, saying the U.S. is violating the interim peace deal. The U.S. has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on U.S.-allied Arab states.

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

The president said the U.S. would be “reimbursed” by 20% of the value of cargo to help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”

The U.S. military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports at midnight local Wednesday in Dubai.

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Boak, Weissert and Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson in New York, Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.